The Journey Collection

by Lisa Bilbrey

  “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to,” he explained. “You know, scheduling conflicts and everything.”

  “Oh, of course,” she murmured. “I suppose you’ve got quite a tight schedule with the team and all your endorsements. How long are you planning on staying?”

  “Um, I’m not sure,” Travis groused, shifting his balance from one foot to the other. “Maybe the week. Guess it just really depends.”

  “Well, I bet your father was happy to see you,” Nadine chirped, walking back around her desk. She took her seat again, a wide smile still stretched across her face. “Every time you play, he brags to everyone in town about how well you did.”

  Travis wasn’t sure how to respond. Russ hadn’t given him any indication that he’d even followed Travis’ career, much less talked about him. “Oh, well, um, that’s nice.”

  “Nadine, do me a favor and call Coach Reynolds and tell him that Travis is here.” Jack turned to him. “I bet the boys would love to talk to you before tonight’s game. Only if you have the time, of course.”

  “Sure, that’d be fine,” Travis replied. “I’m sorry to run like this, but I’ve got some stuff to do before the game tonight, so . . .”

  “Oh, of course.” Jack waved him off. “Thanks again for coming. You really can’t imagine how much it means to all of these boys.”

  Travis nodded. “I can. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in their shoes.”

  ~*~*~*~

  An hour later, Travis found himself sitting on the front steps of his father’s house. He couldn’t bring himself to go inside. The minute he’d left the school office, everything had come crashing down on him. Part of him wanted to believe that Penelope had cheated on him and that Max had been the result of some torrid affair that Travis hadn’t known about; but the other half of him knew that Penelope wouldn’t have done that to him. The girl he’d left behind had loved him.

  Travis looked up when he heard his father’s truck pull up next to Bertha. The minute Russ climbed out, Travis was on his feet. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Knew what? And you’d better check that attitude, boy,” Russ ordered, crossing his arms in front of him.

  “Fuck you,” Travis snarled. “You knew about Max, didn’t you?” At the mention of the boy’s name, his father closed his eyes. “Damn it, Dad. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Russ released a sarcastic laugh and looked up at Travis. “When was I supposed to tell you? Maybe when you didn’t come home for ten years? Or even better, when you didn’t call but once every few months?”

  “That’s not fair,” Travis muttered. “You should have told me about him.”

  “I didn’t know for sure if he was yours,” Russ said with a sigh. “I never asked her.”

  “The math wasn’t hard to figure, Dad.” Defeated, Travis leaned against the side of the truck. “He looks like Mom, don’t you think?”

  “A little,” Russ grumbled.

  Travis brought his hand up, rubbing along the scruff on his jaw. “You knew Penelope was still in town. Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Damn it, Travis.” Russ huffed. “You’re a grown man. Maybe I thought it was time for you to look past your own selfishness for a change.”

  “I’m selfish?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “That’s ironic, coming from you.”

  “And just what’s that supposed to mean, boy?”

  Travis pushed off the side of the truck. “You know what it means. You talk about me never coming back? When did you ever come support me, Dad? Shit, even when I was in school here, you couldn’t be bothered to come watch me play.”

  “I had to work. Someone had to keep this place going. We had bills to pay.” Russ lifted his attention up to Travis. “Plus, just because I wasn’t there physically, didn’t mean I wasn’t there in spirit.”

  “Yeah, just like you were there for Mom?” Travis hissed, watching Russ flinch back. “She needed you, and you weren’t there. I needed you, and you weren’t there. Some would call that a pattern.”

  “One that has passed on to my son,” Russ deadpanned, before brushing past Travis. “I never claimed to be the best husband or father, boy, but I loved your mother — I still do — and I love you. If you don’t know that, then I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about.”

  Russ walked into the house, letting the screen door slam shut behind him. Travis clenched his fists together. He wanted to scream or hit something, but he didn’t. Losing his temper wasn’t going to help anything. Instead of going into the house and trying to patch things up with Russ, though, Travis climbed into his car and headed back into town. Right now, he needed some time to figure out what had happened to him. He hadn’t been home a full day, and already he’d managed to piss off his father.

  Just one more way that I’ve made a mess of my life, Travis thought.

  Ten minutes later, he found himself parked back in the lot between the school and the football field. Travis took a few minutes to calm himself down before he climbed out and walked toward the gate. If he hadn’t promised to talk to the team, he would have bought himself a six-pack of beer and found a nice, quiet country road where he could drink his sorrows away.

  Nadine was working the ticket booth and waved him in, telling him that he didn’t have to pay. Travis planted on a smile and thanked her, even though he could tell it looked off. He walked into the stadium and closed his eyes, the sound of the crowd cheering for him still fresh in his memories. This field had been his sanctuary, one of the few places he could go when everything felt like it was closing in around him. Travis’ sweat, tears, and blood had been shed there.

  “Travis, there you are.” At the sound of Jack’s voice, he turned to see him coming down from the announcer’s box. “I’ll take you down to the team. Coach Reynolds and I thought it would be better if we didn’t tell the boys that you were coming. You know, let them be surprised and everything.”

  “Thanks,” Travis muttered, following him toward the field house.

  A decade hadn’t changed it much. Like so much in Clarendon, a fresh coat of paint had made all the difference to the building. Jack opened the door, motioning for Travis to walk in first. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside and drew everyone’s attention. Travis smiled as he watched the looks of amazement creep onto the players’ faces.

  “Hey, boys,” he snickered, waving at them.

  “You — you’re . . .” One of the boys — a lineman from the look of him — stammered.

  “I’m Travis,” he said, clearing his throat. “From what I’ve been hearing, you boys have had a pretty good season so far.”

  “Yes, sir,” a different boy replied. The tall, lanky red-head stepped around his teammates. “I’m Cody, the team captain.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Travis offered Cody his hand. The boy looked both terrified and thrilled when he wrapped his fingers around Travis’s. “What position do you play?”

  “Quarterback, sir,” Cody muttered, the edges of his ears turning bright red.

  “Ah.” Travis nodded. Letting his hand drop to his side, he looked around at all of the players. “Well, I suppose I should say something witty and inspirational, huh?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Look, I don’t have anything to say that you probably haven’t heard a million times from your parents, teachers, or coaches. All I can really tell you is to enjoy every moment that you’re on that field. Play the game you love, and put every ounce of yourselves into it. If you do that, then you’ll be just fine.”

  “Mr. McCoy, would you lead us through the Lord’s Prayer?” Cody asked.

  Travis nodded, and the boys dropped down to one knee. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . .”

  The boys began saying the prayer with him, the sounds of their murmured voices filling the air. Once they were done, they stood up, grabbed their helmets, and headed out to the field. Travis followed them to the inflatable tunnel, where the roar of the crowd fed into their energy.
A moment later, they ran through the tunnel, spurring the band to play the fight song. Travis laughed again and stopped at the edge of the field.

  The feel of the plush, green grass under his shoes, the painted white yard lines, and the large, maroon C in the middle of the stadium took him back to his senior year. He remembered standing in the middle of the field, trying to imagine a life after football. That was before the offer to play ball for the University of Texas came; before he’d left Clarendon behind. By choosing to leave town, he’d lost everything. Now, he had to decide if it had been worth it. Travis wasn’t so sure.

  ***

  Chapter Four

  Confrontations

  Travis shuffled downstairs the next morning, feeling grumpy and tired. He’d spent most of the night staring at the ceiling or flipping through his high school yearbooks while trying to come to terms with the events from the day before. How was it possible that he could have had a son that he’d never known about? Why hadn’t Penelope told him? Of all people, she knew just how much losing his mother had crushed him. As the sun started to rise over the eastern horizon, Travis gave up on the idea of getting any sleep. After a quick shower, he redressed in the clothes from the day before and headed down to the kitchen, hoping that Russ was either still in bed or had already left for the day.

  Once again, luck wasn’t on his side. When Travis walked into the room, he found Russ sitting at the small, butcher-block table. Travis shook his head, grabbed a clean mug out of the cabinet, and poured himself some coffee, adding a spoonful of sugar. That table had been another of Russ’s ‘projects’ that he’d just had to build while Loralie was left alone to die. In the seventeen years since his mother’s death, Travis had never once sat there. He couldn’t betray her like his father had.

  “I didn’t think you drank coffee anymore,” Russ commented, tossing the paper he’d been reading on the table. “Bad for your health, isn’t that what you told me?”

  “Yep,” Travis replied. He turned and looked at his father. “You should have told me that she lived here. And you really should have told me that she had a kid.”

  “Why?” Russ lifted an eyebrow. “You made yourself pretty clear, boy. You weren’t ever coming back here, and nothing I said was going to change your mind. Or is that just one more part of your life here that you forgot about?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Travis grumbled. “But if I’d known . . .”

  “Damn it, boy.” Russ huffed and stood up. “Would you have come back if she’d told you? If I’d even mentioned my suspicions that Max was yours?”

  “Yes,” Travis groused, knowing the moment the simple word tumbled out that he wasn’t telling the truth. He couldn’t say for sure what he would have done. Never in the years since he’d left Clarendon had he considered returning, not even for holidays. His excuse was always the same: his career came first.

  “You can’t lie for shit, Travis,” Russ scoffed. “Now, maybe you believe that load of hogwash, but I know you better than that.”

  “No, you don’t.” Travis poured out the last of his coffee and left his cup in the sink. “You’ve never known me, Dad, and that’s always been the problem. No matter what I did or didn’t do, it was wrong. I worked my ass off to get my scholarship. And once I was there, I had to prove that I deserved to be there to guys three times my size that came from schools ten times as big as Clarendon. Never in the four years I spent there did you come watch me play or even acknowledge any of it.”

  Travis pushed away from the counter and headed toward the back door. Pausing, he looked back at Russ. “I’d already lost Mom, and with one decision, I lost you, too. I’m sorry that I can’t be the son you want me to be, Dad, but you certainly aren’t the father I needed, either.”

  Though it was hard, Travis pushed open the back door and stumbled outside, leaving his father standing in the middle of the room with a look of pure, unadulterated pain on his face. He wanted to turn around and beg Russ to let him take back his words, but he couldn’t. Instead, he ran over to Bertha and climbed in behind the wheel. Speeding down the gravel driveway, he left a cloud of dirt in his wake and headed into town.

  ~*~*~*~

  For the second day in a row, Travis found himself parked outside the football field. He climbed out of his car and headed down to the asphalt track and began to stretch. His body was wound tight, his muscles aching from being so tense. What Travis needed was either a nice, stiff drink or a good, hard run. He opted for the latter.

  There was a freedom with running, one that Travis had always enjoyed. It had been his escape when life got too hectic; the one way he could control the feelings that welled up inside him. As a kid, he’d run along the creek bed; then as he got older, he’d started coming to the track. He was on his tenth lap when he saw Max sitting in the bleachers, his football in his hands and a wide, innocent smile on his face. Slowing to a stop, Travis went to join him, taking his time so that he could catch his breath and figure out what to say to the boy. Did Max know that Travis might be his father?

  By the time Travis reached him, Max had stood up and was almost bouncing on the metal bleachers. “How far did you run?”

  “About two and half miles,” Travis replied, brushing his hair out of his face with a swipe of his hand. “What are you doing here? It’s barely eight. Shouldn’t you be sleeping until noon or something?”

  Max shrugged his shoulders. “I was bored.”

  “Does your mom know you’re here?”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t care,” Max replied. “I come here all the time. Sometimes the football team will let me watch the game tapes with them, but they had a cross country meet in Borger this morning.”

  “And your mom is okay with you hanging out with them?” Travis asked.

  Max smiled. “She says there are worse places I could be and that if I love football enough, my dreams can come true. Just like yours.”

  “Is that what she says?” Travis murmured, sitting down. Max dropped onto the bench next to him.

  “Yep, she said that if you can do it, then so can I.” Max twirled the ball between his hands. “She talks about you a lot.”

  “What does she say?” Travis inwardly cursed himself for voicing his question. The answer wouldn’t be reassuring, whether it was good or bad.

  Max shrugged his shoulders again. “It depends. When we watch you play, she yells at you to extend your arm more when you throw the ball or to get your feet moving so they don’t tackle you so much. She gets red in the face, and sometimes she has to leave the room.”

  Travis laughed.

  “You think I’m kidding, but she really does,” Max snickered.

  “Oh, I believe you, little man.” Travis smiled. “She always chewed my a . . . butt out for that.”

  “You were going to say a bad word,” Max teased. “Mom would make you put a dollar in the swear jar if she heard that.”

  “Would she, now?” Travis scoffed.

  He nodded. “Yep, she says that using language like that makes a person sound idiotic. Her word, not mine.”

  “Hmm, I guess so.” He leaned down toward Max. “But you know what?”

  “What?” Max’s mocha-colored eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “I know for a fact that your mom used to cuss like a solider.”

  “No way,” Max chortled. Travis nodded. “Hmm, how do you know that?”

  “Oh, um, well, she and I used to know each other,” Travis explained, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “Huh, I wonder why she never told me that,” Max mused.

  “You and me both, little man.” Travis stood up. “I’ve gotta go. Be careful out here by yourself, alright?”

  Max huffed. “Yeah, okay.”

  Travis left Max sitting there, though he couldn’t explain why the ache in his chest increased with each step he took. He didn’t know this kid — not really — but he found himself struggling to walk away. Shaking his head, Travis climbed into his car. It wasn’t possible that he�
��d gotten attached to him. That was silly, right? For all he knew, Max wasn’t even his son.

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that, asshole,” Travis muttered to himself before starting the car.

  Ten minutes later, Travis found himself parked in the cemetery. He climbed out of his car and walked the ten feet to his mother’s gravesite, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around himself. Travis wanted to scream and cry, to rant and rave. He wanted to curl up in a ball and go back to a time when he hadn’t doubted every decision he’d ever made. But he couldn’t, and he knew that. Instead, he knelt on the ground and poured his heart to his mother.

  “Sorry I haven’t been here in so long,” he began, sniffing back the tears that threatened to fall. “I’m sure you’re pissed with me, too. Probably sitting in Heaven right now and tapping your foot in annoyance.”

  Shifting back, Travis sat on the ground with his legs bent up in front of him.

  “I’ve messed things up pretty bad, Mom. Dad’s pissed with me as usual, and my career is most likely over. Now, I find out that Penelope and I might have a kid together?” He sighed. “What do I do? Hmm? Everything is out of control, and I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Are you expecting a reply?” The sound of a soft, tinkling voice behind him had his entire body tensing. He stood up and looked back, unsurprised to find Penelope standing there. He’d been so lost in his wallowing that he hadn’t heard her car pull up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I figured this was where you’d be.”

  “How?” Travis asked, wondering how much of his blubbering she’d heard.

  Penelope smiled. “Because this is where you always came when you were confused.”

  “Guess so.” He nodded, huffing. “Penelope . . .”

  “I know you’re mad at me,” she blurted out, interrupting him and putting her hand up. “And I don’t blame you, Travis, but I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” He snorted. “What about Max?”

  Penelope flinched.

  “You should have told me. I deserved to know,” Travis added.